a sunday kind of love
by starofcote
Summary: "do you know what a sunday kind of love is?"/"love on a sunday?"/"i wish we could have had one." written pre- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and Past, Present, Future featuring our favorite ship, Tiva. Read at your own will: dark and depressing.


She's supposed to be getting on a plane to Tel Aviv at 5:30 AM tomorrow morning and he can't sleep.

Right now all he wants to do is stay in this position, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, her curly hair spread like a mane on his pillows, their feet cuddled up against each other. Her vanilla scented perfume lingers in the air around him and he wonders if he'll ever forget her scent.

One day, he might forget the way her laugh can fill through a room, making everyone turn towards her. He might forget the way she messes up all American sayings or the sound of her voice or her drunken sailor with emphysema snore. He might forget what her hair looks like spread across her pillow, her bright eyes when she's trying not to cry, her curved hips that call his name.

But he doesn't want to forget her scent. As long as he lives to smell that vanilla perfume, he wants to remember her name and what she meant to him.

She decided she couldn't handle the job anymore. All the pain, the loss, the grief, the injuries, the broken people. It was easier for her to remember all the sadness that came with being in their field of work.

It would be harder for her to leave if she thought about the pranks she would miss pulling on McGee with him, the Thanksgiving dinners as a family or Christmas movie nights. If she thought about the stupid, inappropriate things Palmer says in a crime scene or Abby's overwhelming perkiness she wouldn't be able to get on that plane tomorrow. She can't think about Ducky's stories, Gibbs' head slaps, McGee's awkwardness or else she'd cry when she left.

He's not sure if it hurts him that she could think about leaving him or if it makes him feel a little bit better that she can come to him in her pain about leaving everyone else.

She came over earlier that night, a bottle of wine in each hand and one in her purse. She said that she had no room in her suitcases for them and they wouldn't be accepted on the plane. She wanted to drink all of them with only him before she left.

They finished a bottle in ten minutes.

"It's going to be lonely without you to look at across from me." He said as he opened another bottle.

"As I was driving here tonight, I almost ran over an old man. He was rolling across the street, a cane in his hand, laughing to a younger woman who looked like his granddaughter."

"Strolling."

"I could hear him telling her stories. Stories of his youth that made her laugh. I think I almost ran over Ducky and Abby."

He laughed at her and her feet began to rest upon his lap. His left thumb glided circles over them. They never felt more at home.

"I would not know if I had anyways." She said, her eyes and voice dropping low. "I could not recognize them anymore."

She'd been out of the office for over four months. She'd been back and forth to Tel Aviv, prepping for a new job within Mossad and packing and unpacking in her new house. Tomorrow that would be her new home.

His hand hovered over hers, finally clasping their fingers together. "You can. You just don't want to."

Her eyes are darker than black as they reconnect with his and she removed her hand. She leaned over and began to take off her sweatshirt, revealing a silky white tee shirt underneath. "It is hot, is it not?"

He removed his own blazer he hadn't taken off earlier. "Indeed it is, sweetcheeks."

As the bottles of wine diminished, a trail of clothes began to litter the floor from the living room into the bedroom where they found themselves many hours later. She curled her fingers around his chest hair and rested her head under his arm.

"How do I know if you go back to Mossad, you'll come back?" He asked her, their free hands locked together.

"You do not." She answered flatly.

"Why are you here?" He pressed, growing annoyed by her unwillingness to face the facts. He was the one who was supposed to avoid the sensitive topics while she pushed him to unhealthy limits.

She sighed sitting back up against the headboard, pulling the covers up with her. "I needed to see you."

"You're not even going to miss me."

She looked at him in surprise, her mouth forming a perfect o. "Why would you even think that?"

He rolled his eyes and started to get out of bed, putting his boxers on before he began pacing around. "We haven't spoken the things that really matter since you left the office. I hadn't even heard from you until you came back from Tel Aviv two weeks ago."

Her eyes followed him around the room. "What is going on? Is there something you wish to speak of?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you're just insulting the both of us."

Her eyes narrowed and focused in on him as he stopped pacing. "I am not playing dumb. I am merely asking what you want to speak of. Paris? Berlin? Our under cover assignment under the covers? The period between Gibbs' retirement and his return? Jeanne? Michael? Ray? EJ? What are the things that really matter? Those are the things we never speak about but are they the ones that matter?"

He looked at her in silence, not sure of what to say anymore. She sighed again pulling her knees up to her chest under the covers.

"I did not think I would be coming here tonight. I thought our final goodbye was the rooftop dinner where we talked about our families. I told you the truth about Ari's death, my mother's death, Tali. We talked about your mother's death, your ever still strained relationship with your father. We talked about things that matter. I thought that was it."

"I didn't think you would come back. Here, I mean. The last time you were here they were under some pretty tragic consequences."

She smiled sadly and tears finally began to fall from her eyes. "I remember."

He went to kneel in front of her, grabbing her hands. "We don't have to end this, you know. Whatever this is."

She was crying, her breath coming out in short gasps. Her light make-up cast shadows upon her eyes and her nose was starting to turn a shade of red.

He still wanted to kiss her senselessly, hold her hand while walking down a street, and even watch her walk down in aisle in that state.

"I wanted to go back to Israel with a clean state." She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "Leave all of the baggage behind me. But I'd be going back to where it all began, wouldn't I?"

He tried to ignore the sting of her statement. "Did you just use an contraction?"

She frowned and then rolled her eyes. "I believe I used two. I have learned from the pastor."

He went over to the other side of the bed and hopped under the covers next to her. "Master. And you still have some more learning to do. If I let you go, you're going to go backwards on all of this progress."

"Let me go?"

"Stay with me."

She leaned over and softly pressed her lips to his. "I will miss you. The most."

"Prove it to me. Stay here. With me."

"Will you come visit me?"

He locked their fingers together. "I'll call."

It's almost 3:00 in the morning now and he can feel her starting to stir. His mother told him once that her first love broke her heart when they were young. She tried to explain the way you suddenly feel like you never want to get out of bed, the way your breaths start to feel jagged and forced, the overwhelming sense of emptiness that begins to consume you but he couldn't understand.

Was it cliché to say he did now?

"Are you awake?"

Of course. He hasn't slept at all. "Yeah."

"I must go now."

"Do you know what a sunday kind of love is?"

"Love on a sunday?"

He finds her hand in the dark and squeezes it, glad that it was so dark she couldn't see the single tear rolling down his cheek. "I wish we could have had one."


End file.
